It’s not hard to pinpoint what went wrong for the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers. Even if you weren’t able to watch the game, all you’d need to do is look at the box score to determine that it was the third quarter that led to Milwaukee’s downfall.
After all, it’s extremely difficult to work yourself back into the game after being outscored by 18 points in the third quarter. True enough, the Bucks proved just that on Wednesday.
Milwaukee Bucks Coach Adrian Griffin Reacts to Pacers’ Third-Quarter Onslaught
The Bucks were up 68-66 at the break. The Pacers erased that slight advantage completely with a wild third-quarter barrage that saw them outscore Milwaukee 47-29.
After the game, Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin conceded that it was his team’s lethargy after the break that led to their demise:
“I had the starters in and we just got off to a very poor sort of start in the third quarter,” Griffin said, via Eric Nehm of The Athletic. “And then we were playing catch up. You gotta execute, you gotta take care of the basketball, you gotta be able to get stops. They’re a very energetic, athletic, young group. They fly around. They’re very athletic from all their positions. And we gotta neutralize some of that with our physicality without fouling.”
The Pacers blitzed the Bucks in the third quarter and there was just no coming back from there. In their defense, Milwaukee kept pushing until the very end, doing everything they could to mount what would have been an impressive comeback on the Pacers’ own home floor.
Tyrese Haliburton knew what was at stake, though, and the 23-year-old guard made sure that there weren’t going to be any comebacks on his watch.
In the end, it was the Pacers who secured the win, 142-130.
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